It is impossible,
therefore, that (if we are not misled by appearances) any
well-ascertained fact can be contrary to the truth of God as explained
by Revelation. If we are not sure of the facts of nature, we must wait
patiently till further knowledge enlightens us, and must not hastily
conclude that the Bible is wrong. The repeated corrections which
successive years have compelled us to make in conclusions which were
once firmly accepted and proclaimed as "truths of science," should teach
us caution in this respect.

Nor, lastly, is it any reproach to the Church, as keeper of the Divine
Revelation, that its opinion of certain passages should vary with the
growth of knowledge. It would be hardly necessary to make this obvious
remark but for the fact that it has been reproached against Christian
belief, that science is contrary to the Bible, and that the Church has
ever had to confess itself wrong, after having persecuted people for not
following its peculiar views. It is, indeed, unfortunate that a blind
zeal for God has led, in the past, to persecution; the Church failing to
see that such men as Galileo and Bruno never denied God at all, nor did
their discoveries really contradict the Word. But persecution is not a
sin peculiar to the Church; it is a sin of human nature.

It is also true that Christian views may be wrong, but the fault is in
the views, not in the Bible.

Scientific men, of all people, should be the last to complain of
_change_ in views, seeing that what was science two hundred years ago is
now (much of it) exploded nonsense.

There is no harm whatever in changing our views about the meaning of
difficult passages--provided we never let go our hold on the central
truth, and put the error to our own account, not saying that the Word
itself is wrong.

It may, in this connection, be at once observed that any particular
explanation, or that one which I propose presently to suggest, of the
first chapters of Genesis, may not commend itself to the reader, and yet
the general argument I have adduced will hold good notwithstanding.

All that I care to contend is, that science does not contradict a
syllable of the narrative on _one_ possible interpretation, and that
changes in view as to interpretation are no arguments against the truth
of the passage itself.

CHAPTER XII.

_METHODS OF INTERPRETING THE NARRATIVE--ASSUMPTIONS OF MEANING TO
CERTAIN TERMS._

Returning, then, to the narrative in th